iNumber Number: Jozi Gold (2023)

[asakiyume]

If you enjoy a good heist movie and have Netflix, I highly recommend iNumber Number: Jozi Gold**(directed by Donovan Marsh), a heist flick out of South Africa. It gives you a very entertaining foursquare of lawful/chaotic good/evil alignment, humor, fun characters, truly luminous cinematography in a most likely unfamiliar landscape (unless you're from South Africa). (Also violence, but less than in American films.) The protagonists are cop buddies Shoes (straight arrow, gentle family man) and Chili (has vigilante tendencies) who fail in the initial 15 minutes to take down the Hyena Man (bonus larger than life CG hyena) and so are sent down to The Basement by their corrupt boss--whereupon the rest of the plot, involving a Robin Hood gang, a 1972 mint sold for scrap, a dictator's son, that hyena, and an orphanage, unfolds.



Lawful good, represented by soulful Shoes


Awww!


Chaotic good, represented by The Gang, three siblings, one of whom is deaf.


Lawful evil, represented by Shoes' and Chili's ball-busting boss


Chaotic evil, represented by the Hyena Man


I think the film must have been shot mainly at sunrise and sunset, because it's filled with a golden light that's perfect for a film about a gold heist.


And I was struck by its meditation on the weight--in all senses of the word--of gold. In the first chase scene, Chili is pursuing the Hyena man while lugging around a bag of gold nuggets. He finally leaves it with a guy in the poor neighborhood he's running through with the admonishment not to open it (!!) When he comes back...


The old guy tells him, "I wasn't always like this. I used to be the best drill op, until I lost my arm. I know gold, my boy."


"And this is not gold. It's an iron called pyrite. Fools gold."


Later, Chili is struck by a bar of gold, and is told "This is what the real gold feels like"


.... And of course it's the weight of gold that creates wild buildings like this (Gold Reef City casino hotel)


Light, by contrast, has no weight, but transforms. As does fire.


But mainly the film's just propulsively fun, with a great sense of style and a good sound track. And you get to hear Zulu spoken.

What will you do with your one wild and precious krugerrand?


**Not to be confused with iNumber Number: Avenged, an earlier flick with the same main characters.

Comments

[sartorias]

Oh this sounds like fun! I will put it in my queue.

[asakiyume]

Yay! I hope it suits ^_^

(Speaking of suits--the styles! Wonderful)

[sovay]

Light, by contrast, has no weight, but transforms. As does fire.

What a beautiful shot you chose to illustrate it, too.

[asakiyume]

It's a movie filled with moments like that: light, textures.

[kore]

Oh, this sounds neat! I'm trying to watch more international stuff.

[asakiyume]

It's very easy to watch, a treat for the eyes, and the story is fun to watch play out.

[amaebi]

I kind of hate caper movies, but the visuals you provide are ace-and-a-half.

Did you know that the Hebrew for heavy/weight also means glory?

[asakiyume]

I did not know that! Very cool. Language is so intoxicating.

[wayfaringwordhack]

I love heist/caper movies (and have often wondered why...) so I am going to try to get a hold of this. As everyone else has said, the stills are stellar, real eye candy.

[asakiyume]

I hope you can find this!

I think I enjoy heist/capers because they involve intricate plans, and it's fun (for me) to see how those work out or go astray.

[wayfaringwordhack]

Did you watch it in Afrikaans subtitled in English? That is what J found for me. :P I don't mind subtitles, so I will be fine, just wondered.

[asakiyume]

No, I had it in, I believe, the original, which was mainly Zulu with some English, and subtitles throughout.

[wayfaringwordhack]

So we will be in pretty much the same boat. :P

[asakiyume]

I will have to record some of the version I heard and send it to you so you can at least hear the corrupt policewoman--she's so great sounding! And I love it when they're going along in Zulu and then a word pops up in English. Like at one point in the very beginning, when Chili is sent in to try to entrap the Hyena Man, he's all fancily dressed, and Shoes says he looks like a peacock, and it's unintelligible words and then suddenly the word "peacock"

Plus I just like the way Zulu sounds--it's got all those tongue-on-the-roof-of-the-mouth sounds.

[asakiyume]

.... ehhh, never mind. I tried to record some of her speech on my phone, but it came out very muddy. I took a video and it was better, but TOO LARGE to send by email--but you can hear some of it if you watch the trailer here: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt27728519/

[wayfaringwordhack]

:D

I had a friend from South Africa back when I lived in Sancerre, before Mayotte, and she would speak a bit of Zulu for me. It was so neat and incomprehensible.

But yeah, cool when they throw in English words, kind of like in Bollywood movies.

[asakiyume]

Yes, EXACTLY like Bollywood movies

[genarti]

Oooh, this sounds very cool! And what absolutely gorgeous screencaps.

[asakiyume]

^_^

Glad you like the images. Since you can't do a screencap from your computer with Netflix (you can do the keystrokes, but it just ends up black), this involved me taking a photo of the screen on my phone!